EVERY PATIENT TELLS A STORY by Lisa Sanders

Book Quote:

“Patients are worried. One survey showed that over one third of patients surveyed after visiting an emergency room had concerns about medical errors and by far the greatest concern was the possibility that they had been misdiagnosed. They are right to worry.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (AUG 31, 2009)

Every Patient Tells a Story, by Dr. Lisa Sanders, an internist and teacher at the Yale University School of Medicine, is a mesmerizing look at the way sick people are treated and mistreated, often with the best of intentions, by their physicians. In her introduction, the author insists that every story she relates, however improbable, is real. The names of the patients and some of the doctors have been changed to protect confidentiality. Sanders is a technical advisor for the hit show, House, in which a brilliant but cranky diagnostician and his staff take about fifty-five minutes (including commercials) to save the patient of the week. Sanders also writes a monthly column about the art of diagnosis for the New York Times Magazine. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Sanders presents her well-thought out ideas about the obstacles doctors face when they attempt to make difficult diagnoses. In addition, she expresses strong opinions about the ways in which medical students can be trained to do a better job of finding out what’s really wrong with us.

Sanders is a superb writer whose medical knowledge, storytelling ability, intelligence, and compassion make this book impossible to put down. She cites revealing studies to support her conclusions, and she expresses herself eloquently, using apt metaphors: “The experience of being ill can be like waking up in a foreign country.” It is the doctor’s job to provide “a road map that will help [patients] manage their new surroundings.” What happens, however, when there is no clear path and the medical practitioner is almost as lost as the person who came to him hoping for a cure? The answer is far from simple. Sanders insists that physicians can do a better job of listening to the patient, taking a thorough history, and conducting a proper physical exam. They should take advantage of the amazing technology available to them, while recognizing that even high-tech machines and sophisticated tests may be unhelpful or misleading. If the doctors are stumped even after taking all of these steps, then they should promptly consult an expert. It is crucial that physicians refrain from coming to premature conclusions to explain the inexplicable. Even if an incorrect diagnosis does not lead to the patient’s death, it can subject him to expensive and ineffective treatments and prolong his suffering. Every Patient Tells a Story is a must read for physicians and for anyone who may have to endure a potentially terrifying hospital stay for “medically unexplained symptoms.”

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